_ CHAPTER XX
When Marcantonio, finally released from his long day of service in the Senate Chamber, sought the private apartments of the Doge, where Marina with her maidens was waiting for him, he found her lying back, wan and spiritless, in one of the great gold and crimson arm-chairs of the state salon; her eyes were closed, her lips were moving in prayer, but her rosary had dropped from her weak clasp. Some of her maidens, as thus doing their lady truest service, were still kneeling with hopeless petitions to the Holy Mother to avert the doom from Venice; but one, the Lady Beata, who was tenderly devoted to her, had not ceased from efforts to rouse her with nameless little gracious cares. She was watching for Marcantonio, to whom she signed eagerly to hasten, as the guard of the Doge permitted him to pass the doorway.
"Thus hath our lady been, and naught hath moved her," she said low, and in distress, "since the Secretary of the Serenissimo, who with much futile reasoning hath sought to change her, hath taken his leave, save that ever and anon she hath opened her eyes to watch the door and bid us pray for Venice."
Her husband had reached her side and taken her listless hand before Marina had noticed his approach; but there was no smile in her eyes as she raised them to his--only a look of unutterable misery.
"Is there no hope?" she questioned. Her fingers, weakly folded about his, were burning.
He controlled himself with a great effort.
"Yes, carina, every hope. All is well; and the Serenissimo hath been most gracious. To-morrow, when thou hast had thy rest, he will send to thee the Reverend Counsellor Padre Maestro Paolo, that he may quiet all thy fears. For all is well."
She tried to draw him nearer, but her hand dropped powerless. "The vote?" she questioned, with her eager eyes; and, more falteringly, with that hoarse, broken whisper which pierced his heart.
"It is well," he answered her tenderly. "Carinissima, all is well."
She fixed him with terror-stricken eyes, in which her soul seemed burning and her lips moved with a question he could not hear. He bent closer, touching her cheek caressingly.
"The vote?" she had asked again.
"Tell her the count," said the Lady Beata, with an imperious touch on his wrist; "it is killing her."
The Senate had adjourned in triumph; without a dissenting voice Venice had rallied to the support of her prince. Marcantonio had thought he should be proud to tell her of this unanimous action of their august body, which could not fail to restore her confidence and quiet her fears. But now he could not find the words he sought, for never had he looked into eyes so full of a comprehending woe.
"Marina," he began. "Carinissima--" helplessly repeating his powerless assurance: "It is well."
Still her deep eyes seemed to question him relentlessly, though she did not speak; her gaze fascinated him, and he could not withdraw his eyes until he had read in hers the great agony he had so lightly estimated--the agony of a soul deeply religious, of unquestioning faith in the strictest doctrine and dogma of the Church of Rome; the grief of such a soul, tenderly compassionate for the suffering brought upon an innocent people by no rebellion of its own; the terror of this soul--passionately loving--measuring the horrors of an unblessed life and death for all its dearest ones.
"All?" she had seemed to question him, leaning nearer, and Marcantonio could not answer; but he saw, from the deepening horror in her eyes, that she understood. She knew that
he had helped to bring the doom. Oh, if he could but have told her that he had not voted--that he had withheld his one little vote from Venice to comfort her! If, for this once, he had failed to give what Venice expected of him, only for Marina's sake!
He bent over her passionately, a thousand reasons rushing to his rescue, clamoring to be told her. "Marina, beloved, there is nothing to fear!" he cried desperately, eager for his own defense, resolute to make her comprehend the perfect safety of Venice, to calm the beseeching horror in her eyes; "Fra Paolo will come!"
Her gaze relaxed, her eyelids quivered and closed; she had fainted.
--Or was it death?
He folded her to his heart with a cry of desolation.
The Lady Beata hastily thrust him aside and opened the white robe at the throat, and Marcantonio started back; there were stripes of half-healed laceration on the tender flesh--some fresh, as if but just raised by the lash.
"Ay, my lord," Beata answered very low, to his quick, grieved question; "all that a daughter of the Church may do hath our lady added to her prayers for Venice. She hath been rigorous in fasting and in penance until her strength is gone; but the pain of it she feeleth not, because of the greater pain of her soul, which is lost in supplication that availeth naught."
Leonardo Donato would be very gracious to the Lady of the Giustiniani, though she had come so near to costing the city a divided vote, because he had seen the misery in her eyes with her great love for Venice, and because the Council had so declared its vote for the State that he could afford to be magnanimous. Nay, since even the Senator Marcantonio had not flinched before that wonderful agonized white face, he need not confine her, as he had intended, in a convent for decorous keeping; he was glad of the change in her favor which would prevent the harshness that might have increased her influence to the degree of danger. He sent, instead, a gracious message by his secretary--"Might the father pay a visit to his daughter of the Republic to inquire of her welfare and assure her of his favor, before she returned to her palace?"
But the message of courtesy, sent by the Doge himself, had been stayed on the threshold of his own state salon.
* * * * *
The Republic had, indeed, quitted herself nobly in her vote; so valiant a blow had she struck for the rights of princes that this consciousness rang out in the bold tones of her announcement to the courts of Europe--"Which things we have thought best to tell you for your sole information, so that if mention be made of them to you, and not else, you may be able to answer to the purpose and to justify this our most righteous cause."
And from the moment that the Senate had been unofficially apprised by Nani that the terrible Interdict was already printed and would presently be fulminated, every possible precaution of self-defense had been put in operation throughout the dominions of Venice, with an ingenuity, a foresight, and a celerity which the watching courts of Europe not only viewed with amazement, but accepted as an evidence of the conscious power and justice of the Republic. Overtures came fast from England, from Spain, from France--every monarch wished some share in the pacification between these courts of Rome and Venice.
Meanwhile, in Venice life went on superbly. There was no question of any spiritual disfranchisement; these sons of the Church were not under interdict, having committed no sin which laid them open to that charge. Moreover, no ban had been
published throughout the wide extent of their domain. Hence, for the Venetians, there was no interdict, whatever awful anathema might be affixed to those distant doors of Saint Peter's in Rome; with whatever voice of anger its terrors might be thundered at the Holy See, against rulers, people, priests, and sacraments within the doomed city--the wide waters of the lagoon laved its shores in benediction, like a baptismal charm upon the fair front of Venice, against which the Curse threatened impotently.
At the centre of this superb and daring court sat a friar, trained from his childhood up in the customs, traditions, and beliefs of his Church and of his order--a reverent practitioner in her fasts and sacraments, simple in his habits as a hermit-monk, faithful in his religious duties as the most punctilious priest in Rome, sure in his faith that God would uphold the right, and asserting, without compromise, that right was on the side of Venice.
What a stay for rulers who fortified their every position by some appeal to precedent--who would punctiliously know the source and interpretation of every law upon which they rested!
Above all, what a stay for the simple people who, in these days of bewildering conflict, knew not what to believe!
Would Masses go on, and the church doors be open and the sacraments continue? Might they still take their brides and baptize their little ones, and follow their dead to burial, and sign the sign of the cross, in token of the favor of heaven--as loyal sons of the Church?
And would the Madre Beata--blessed guardian of this Virgin City--still smile upon them from all the separate shrines of Venice?
Should the labor and the imprecation of this simple people go on until the evening in their wonted flow, and should nothing fail them of the benedictions they had known?
It was a mystery; but threatening Rome was far and unfamiliar, and Venice they knew--present, protecting, peremptory--impossible to disobey.
Before the commands of the angry Pontiff could reach the heads of the orders in Venice, people, priests, and prelates throughout the dominions were forewarned; they must continue in every accustomed practice of their religion; they might neither receive nor publish any minatory papers--these must be instantly brought to the government, under severest penalties.
Offending prelates were brought from distant sees to meet the displeasure of the Republic; hesitating priests were silently hastened to decision by scaffolds, looming suddenly within their precincts. While leaflets--expressly prepared to disaffect the Venetians--proclaiming that no obedience was due from a people to its prince under censure; that all vows, contracts, and duties between man and man, husband and wife, children and parents were nullified for those who remained faithful to the Church in acknowledging the censure, as against those who disclaimed it--these leaflets, introduced by secret agents of the Pontiff and interdicted by the Republic, flowed in vast numbers, but silently, into the hands of the Ten, and were seen no more.
Meanwhile that terrible thing which the people had vaguely feared had
not come upon them; though at first they paused, half-hearted, when they passed the house of the Tintoret, where the quaint figure of "Ser-Robia," the Pasquino of Venice, had often a bit of news that the people cared to hear, grotesquely placarded over his broad mouth. He was a good friend to the people, Ser-Robia, and gave them many a pleasant bit of gossip to cheer their evening stroll; but it was wise not to laugh until one had heard the words, and there was often a priest or a scholar near to tell the meaning to those who could not spell it out for themselves. Always, in these days, there was some one who could read to the people, for this was that solemn "protest" of "Leonardo Donato, by the Grace of God Doge of Venice," etc., wherewith the most Christian Republic defied the interdict. Here, along the Rialto, in all the public squares of Venice, on the doors of the churches,--wherever proclamation was wont to be made,--the people might pause and read this consoling word of Venice, instead, perchance, of some copy of the interdict which had been smuggled into the city and pasted, surreptitiously, over the Doge's "protest," but which those faithful
Signori di Notte--the night-watch of Venice--were sure to destroy before the morning dawned.
"To the Most Reverend the Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops of our Venetian Dominions," said this "Protest," "and to the Vicars, Abbots, Priors, Rectors of Parochial Churches, and other Ecclesiastical Prelates, greeting:" forthwith proceeding to declare that "the Interdict which his Holiness was 'said' to have published was null and void, and forbidden to be observed--not having been incurred by any fault of Venice."
But even those who could not read soon recognized the features of that message, which met them everywhere, hiding the scars of other messages which they must not see.
"No, no," they said, with laughing thanks to some friendly interpreter who stood near; "it is enough;
va bene--we know it like our Ave Maria!"
But sometimes a family group came back for a word, when the others had scattered.
"Thou, Gigio, tell the good padre!" says the bright-eyed young contadina, pulling the gray sleeve of her fisherman who stands stolidly beside her.
"
Si, si," he answers indifferently, shrugging his shoulders and relapsing into silence, as he pushes his wife and mother before him for a refuge; for the men of the islands were less at home in argument with the priests than were the women of their households.
"It is thus, your Reverence," the young woman explains cheerily. "It is the grandmother who is afraid. Santa Maria!
how she is afraid!" She touches her forehead significantly.
The simple old woman, comprehending only that they speak of her, drops a courtesy, looking furtively about her with troubled eyes, and fumbling over her beads; the "protest" has no meaning for her, although it is written in good Venetian.
But a few words suffice for such as these who have caught only some vague hint of the Holy Father's displeasure, and are reassured by the open church and the promise of Mass and benediction.
It is those others who make trouble; they come, from time to time,--by twos and threes, never alone,--and read for themselves, with lowering brows, but ask no questions. And sometimes, if they watch too silently, the courteous friar who has graciously interpreted the message which is above the heads of the crowd, exchanges a glance of intelligence with some gay young signor who belongs to the great army of secret service--as revealed to the friar on guard by the password of the day; and the sullen-browed group is courteously accosted by the young noble--"Excuse me, signori, you are strangers in Venice; a gondola is waiting to conduct you to the palace."
They will be tried as secret agents of the enemy. But resistance is rare, for an escort of guards pours out from the doorways and calles, if a stiletto but gleam in the sunlight; and no secret agent may cope with Venice in promptness of self-defense and ingenuity of prevention.
It is interesting in the campo in these early days, before the effect of the government's measures for coercing the opinions of the populace is fully declared.
"I am a good Catholic, most reverend father; I keep the mariegole; every year I go to confession," protests some sturdy gondolier, who has been made anxious by his womenfolk. "And many a fare I pay to light the traghetto of San Nicolo; with an ave for the favor of the Blessed Mother to confound the scoundrel Castellani, who threw a good Nicolotto over the Ponte Senza Parapetti, in the last fight; and it cost us oil enough to light Venice for a year--faith of San Nicolo!--to keep them from winning at our regatta--
maledetti!"
For even those gondoliers who kept the mariegole were not precisely angels, and the part of their creed which they religiously upheld was a deathless antagonism to the rival faction which won more lamps and pretty gifts for the patron madonnas of the various traghetti than any other article of their faith.
To a few, chiefly women with devout, sad faces--watchers, perchance, beside beds over which the shadow of death is creeping--the padre tells compassionately of consoling, helpful words that are preached daily in the great deserted church of
I Gesuiti; for in this parish, more than others, there are difficulties, since it had been the centre of the disaffection. But now its doors are ceaselessly open for a refuge; no service is omitted, no sacrament denied; and daily, before vespers, the people may listen to a few simple words from Fra Paolo. Thither, in these early days of the struggle, the crowd flocks, drawn partly by curiosity to hear a man of whom it is whispered that he has just been individually put under the greater excommunication by the Holy Inquisition, because of his attitude in this quarrel.
There is much talk of Fra Paolo sifting about the church and square, where the gathering of the people shows a sprinkling of red-robed senators; for the Padre Maestro Paolo, which is his title since he has been Consultore to the Republic, is a great man now, with a greatness that means something to the populace, to whom letters and sciences are nothings. But the Consultore is the friend of Venice; he is
their friend--coming each day to talk to the people. "It is not true that great trouble has come upon Venice, for Fra Paolo makes it all quite plain, and he knows everything," they say; "our padre in San Marcuolo is like a bimbo to him! The Jesuit Fathers went too soon, and might have spared themselves the burning of their papers and their treasure. Santa Maria!--what is it they are saying about Fra Paolo finding the die for making money that the
padri left behind? What is a 'die,' Luigi? If thou hadst had the sense to bring thy boat to clear away the rubbish, instead of thinking there are only fish in the world, thou mightest have had the luck to find it; it must be better than working lace bobbins all the week for a handful of
soldi that wouldn't buy one macaroni!"
"Peace, then, with thy babble!"
"See, then, the holy water is quite safe; I saw our padre cross himself by that first basin. Thou hast done well,--
hein Luigi,--to bring me from Burano, if there are
no fish to-morrow at the Ave Maria; for now we can sleep in peace! They told such tales of I Gesuiti, one thought the devils were having a holiday--Santa Maria!"
"The women are worse for chattering," Luigi retorts, with a forcible imprecation. "Here cometh the Consultore--hold thy tongue."
"No, no, Luigi; it is only a frate from the Servi; Fra Paolo is a great man, with a robe like the Serenissimo; he might wear a crown if he liked! Ah, to be great like that!"
But Fra Paolo and his secretary wore the grave garb of their order, to the great disappointment of the younger women, who had been attracted by the expectation of some pomp.
"Word hath reached the Contarini secretly from Rome," said one senator to another, as the Consultore passed them, "that they have found themselves a new diversion before the palace of the Vatican, and that some of our great ones here are burned in effigy to instruct the populace. A pile of Fra Paolo's writings doth light the funeral pyre; and all that he hath written or
may hereafter write is placed upon the Index."
"
Davvero! his words would make me wrathful if I held the views of his Holiness, who may well fear the incontrovertibility of his wit. But our Consultore looketh a simple man to have been shown such honor!"
"He beareth honors bravely," the other answered, with due appreciation of the humor; "but lately, when the master Galileo was before the Senate with his telescope, he had a pretty tale of Gian Penelli and Ghetaldo, wherewith in Padua Fra Paolo hath won the title of 'the miracle of the century.'"
"I heard it not; some commission held me at the arsenal; San Marco be thanked that it is over!"
"Ebbene, old Penelli--gouty so that he can scarce move--hath a visit from our great mathematician Ghetaldo, who findeth with our magnificent patron of letters a friar to whom Penelli showeth such honor--limping to the door with him, as if he were a prince--that Ghetaldo, wrathful at this foolish waste over a friar, asketh his name with scorn. And is not better pleased when Penelli telleth that Fra Paolo is the 'miracle of the age in every science.' 'So, I will prove it,' saith Penelli, 'for verily the world knoweth the great Ghetaldo for a mathematician! Come, then, with problems the most difficult thou canst prepare, on a day it may please thee to name, and meet Fra Paolo at my table, without warning to him.'
Ecco! Penelli is subtle; great satisfaction and much labor on the part of our mathematician. Enter Fra Paolo,--simple, unadvised,--solves the propositions at a hearing. 'Miraculous!' cries the superb Ghetaldo, gentle as a lamb! A friendship for life, and Fra Paolo is the teacher! But it is more wonderful to hear the tales of how he preacheth to the people here, in the Gesuiti. Let us follow, for he giveth them not many minutes, for fear of wearying them. We need lift our mantles high, for the pavement is like a market garden of Mazzorbo, with broken bits from the women's baskets--Faugh!"
The splendid senators seldom mingled in such a crowd, except at guarded distances, to make a pageant for it; it was picturesque, shabby, malodorous, composed chiefly of young women with bright-eyed babies and baskets emitting unctuous savors of
frittola and garlic; now and then an old peasant who could not be tranquil until she had heard Fra Paolo speak was escorted by a rebellious grandson, bribed to quiet by the promise of a
soldo for his little game of chance; occasionally a man, impatient to have done with it all and get out on the canal again, moved restlessly from place to place; only here and there the dim light showed a face pathetic in its questioning, to whom the answer meant life or death.
"What hath a man of such rare powers and learning to do with these simple ones--a man whose time is precious to the State?"
The noble senators withdrew a little from the crowd to watch the scene, as they put the question to each other; their servants brought them chairs within the shadow of a column.
They did not know that few are great enough in an age of superstition to hold a conscience uncontrolled by traditions, and a primitive faith simple as a child's, with the tenacity of a strong man; there had been nothing in his labors at the Senate to call forth this most sacred side of his reserved nature, and they did not understand that it was to this he owed much of the marvelous poise of will and judgment which kept him unspoiled in spite of intellectual gifts that would have ruined him without his absolute dependence on the One Supreme. But on this sacred side alone was there any entrance to his emotions.
Fra Paolo was not speaking from the pulpit; he stood beside a table that had been placed in the nave, and the people gathered close about him, as children near a father, while he opened a great vellum-bound volume with massive golden clasps, which his secretary had brought from the library of the Servi.
"Come nearer," he called to them simply, beckoning with his hand, "so that all may hear; put the old people and the little ones nearest."
He looked around him, not smiling, but very quiet and patient, as if he were waiting for the slight confusion to subside; for at first they pushed each other rudely to get closer.
"There is room for all," he said, "in God's house;" and as he looked into their faces each felt that it was a word to him, and held his breath to listen--which suddenly seemed quite easy! The smaller children nestled contentedly on their mothers' arms, munching some dainty brought to keep them quiet, and fascinated by the low, clear voice, watched with round, solemn eyes to see if he would smile; while two or three who were tall enough to reach just over the edge of the table steadied themselves by clutching it with their chubby hands, dropping their hold of their mothers' mantles--for the pages were full of pretty colors, and the voice of the padre was like a lullaby to keep them still, and they were not afraid--at all.
Fra Paolo never gave the people many words, but sometimes they were strong and beautiful, like an old poem, and in their own Venetian--not in the Latin which had been made for the great ones.
"It was a wonderful book, written long ago," he told them; "before the Bishop of Altinum fled with his people to Torcello and built the old Duomo; before Venice began to be."
Many of them did not know there was
anything so old as that! They looked at each other and began to think.
"And it was written for the comfort of every one who loveth God, our Father, whatever his troubles may be. See what is written here for any who fear that the consolations of our holy religion shall be taken away. For that is what you fear?"
They looked at each other, hesitating. "Si, si--yes--" timidly. "No, no," more bravely.
Fra Paolo smiled.
"No!" they said, distinctly.
"If any of you are afraid," Fra Paolo said, looking full into their faces as they pressed nearer, "because the fathers of this church have gone away and left you, there are words in this old book--written long ago, before there was any Venice--to condemn those who would close the churches. 'Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,' saith the Lord. 'Behold, I will visit upon them the evil of their doings, saith the Lord.' 'Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?'"
"And here are some words that are written for you--whom they have deserted. 'Thus saith the Lord: again there shall be heard in this place,
which ye say shall be desolate, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness; the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the Lord.' It is all very simple. Love God and pray to him, and be faithful in your duty. And he will keep you happy and safe from harm."
The ringing treble of children's voices sounded through the open door of the sacristy and distracted the attention of the congregation, who turned to watch the choristers as they came in sight, by twos and twos, chanting the canticle, "Praise the Lord of Hosts; for the Lord is good; for His mercy endureth forever!"
While Fra Paolo slipped away unnoticed. _